We got here in the evening, so had a nice dinner at one of my usual restaurants and then went to bed. The next morning (we only had one full day in Montpellier) we had a lazy sleep-in and then made our way out into the town. There aren't a whole lot of touristy things to do here, so we mostly just walked around the streets and enjoyed the sun. We made a quick but unsuccessful visit to the mall to look for sandals for dad, and then walked through the Antigone, which is the new part of town, towards the river. It was a nice quick visit, and fun to show Dad around the town a little bit, and for him to get to see my home in France.
The next morning we got on a train to Paris. It's a really easy trip, only 3.5 hours to Gare de Lyon, and from there we took a bus to Louise's apartment near les Invalides. Dad only had the afternoon in Paris, his flight left the next morning, so we decided to do the most iconic Parisian thing and go see the Eiffel Tower. This was also his first trip to Paris since he was 12 years old.
After leaving the Tour Eiffel, Louise walked us around her neighborhood and showed us some of her favorite things in the vicinity including a really amazing building front which I, unfortunately, did not get any pictures of. Then we went to a brasserie so that Dad could have a cup of French coffee.
We got dinner on Louise's street in a nice little restaurant, they both had pasta with mushrooms (I swear the French have hundreds of different types of mushrooms) and I got a really yummy steak with frites and we shared a creme brulée for dessert.
Dad got up really early for his plane, so after Louise came back from taking him to a taxi to find the airport bus, we both had a nice long sleep in. I went for a quick run (in the final two weeks of training for my half marathon) and got ready to head out into Paris.
We had an exciting belated birthday shopping day, which mostly consisted of being shocked by the prices of dresses at Printemps and encountering some very strange fashions. We also ventured out of the department store and found some more reasonably priced clothing.
For dinner we went to a really nice restaurant with lots of courses that included some delicious oysters (I just recently discovered my love for them) covered with tiny pears, salmon, cheese and soufflé. It was fun to have a real fancy French meal, since I don't encounter those very often, and we had a great time catching up and chatting.
On Saturday we did a little bit more clothes shopping, as well as food shopping for a small dinner party Louise was throwing for me later. That evening three of her friends came over, two ex-pats living in France and one hilariously wonderful French-Brazilian 80+ year-old woman. We ate paté and olives and lots of delicious appetizer-like foods and had a really great time chatting and laughing. Louise and I finished off the night by watching a few episodes of a thrilling murder-mystery show.
Sunday was my last day in Paris, and we had a pretty lazy day. We had lunch at a sushi restaurant, actually a pretty big chain in France who just opened up their first shop in New York City, and then mostly just hung around the apartment for the afternoon. My train left at 9pm, so I slept most of the way home and then went straight to bed on my return to Montpellier.
All-in-all it was a really great vacation, very different from my two weeks in February and a much less exhausting type of travel. So nice to get to spend the weekend with my godmother enjoying Paris, even if it did rain everyday.
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